About three weeks later, I needed to update the description. The same thing happened again. Again, the same chap kicked some butt in the store and got the update approved.

A year or so later, and I have had a request from Microsoft to fill in their age rating questionnaire.

Of course – this requires submitting a new update, and of course the exact same problem is hitting. (Note – the app, and its description and screenshots are completely unchanged)

App Policies: 10.1 Inaccurate Representation, Title

Your app and its associated metadata must accurately and clearly reflect the source, functionality, and features of your app.

<snip – list of policies>

Notes To Developer

The app name does not accurately represent the app.
For more information see Windows Store Policy 10.1 at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=620446.

This time, I haven’t had a response from the program manager (he has probably moved on in disgust)

I have resubmitted with a link to the original story, but have just had a somewhat meaningless response

Hello Rob,

Thank you for the follow up and I am showing that app under that account. Now I also reviewed over the listing and I would suggest contacting report app from the email below as they will be bale to assist you directly on the certification.

If you have any questions or concerns, please respond to this e-mail and we will work to resolve them as quickly as possible.

I don’t think this will help – clearly the issue is nothing to do with me reporting an infringement, or anyone else reporting an infringement. The issue is that every time I submit an update, Microsoft do the same brain-dead thing.

I’m going to try one more submission with the ‘do not fail… escalate to…’ note…

I guess Windows Store is dying, and Microsoft just want to clear out the few remaining apps.

VLC Remote is ready; We have recently updated our apps on iOS, Android and WP7 to support VLC 2.1.

The only thing you need to do is make sure to run the latest version of the setup helper, and the latest version of VLC Remote after upgrading VLC.

The key new feature for remote control is that you can now set a password to control VLC. Click on the advanced tab of the setup helper if you want to select your own password (If not, we just use a default password for you).

Unfortunately, VLC doesn’t recognise aliases or shortcuts (it just tries to play them), so these won’t help you.

There is a dedicated drive button in the browse page that will take you to your full drive list. If you are using Windows and don’t see your external drive, then you may need to make sure that your external drive is mapped to a drive letter.

You can even set your external drive as your default directory to make browsing faster in future. Just tap on the heart/folder icon when you are in the drive you want and that will become your default folder for when you next launch this remote.

I was looking for a way to communicate with users of my apps – and this seemed to be a good approach. My hope is that it is simple enough to be unintrusive, but also obvious enough for you to read if you are interested.

I’m used to working in a community where there is a lot more direct communication between users and developers – but that is tough to manage through the app store. Hence the ‘in app news’

My intent is to use this channel to let people know about updates, new features and other apps that I’m working on. I’ll be adding tips and requests for beta testers too.

If you have any comments or suggestions, then let me know at rob@hobbyistsoftware.com